For their new family home in Austin, Texas, Jamie and Steven Dell wanted a house that evoked the timeless indoor-outdoor architecture of Morocco and southern Spain, like the iconic Alhambra palace. So in 2019, when they were preparing to tour a 1990s Texas Tuscan house, it seemed like an obvious mismatch even before they got there.
“It was a large Italianate villa type of place,” said Mr. Dell, a 62-year-old eye surgeon.
They had already engaged the architect Paul Lamb to work with them on whichever home they would buy, and asked him to join the tour.
“On the way over, I was trying to think of all the ways to convince them this was not the house to buy,” Mr. Lamb said.
Despite listing photos that made it look like a poor choice, both the Dells and their architect revised their assessments upon seeing the property in person. The style of the 10,000-square-foot house wasn’t a fit, but the lot and the bones of the structure were impressive.
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The post Creating the ‘Feeling of Morocco’ in Texas appeared first on New York Times.
